NEWS

You may remember a painting that made headlines when it sold at Sydney Contemporary last year – it was an important work by one of Australia’s most significant artists, it had been kept at the end of a bed for decades and it sold for a record price at the time. It made for a great story.

But you may not be aware there was something about the story that wasn’t quite right…

As with Navajo blankets, Japanese Zen ensō paintings, Gee’s Bend quilts and much more, the similarity between Australian aboriginal painting and modern Western abstract art is mostly superficial. All have their own codes and contexts, which are keys to unlocking the deeper beauty of what the artists have made. Think of them as outliers at your peril…

In June each year I look back at the market activity and all major exhibitions held over the previous 12 months to come up with the top 10 contemporary artists – the main drivers as well as emerging talent - that I see as having the greatest potential and opportunity for growth.

…How to move forward, and build a common artistic future on stolen land? As American curators and artists get serious about unwinding the colonial legacies embedded in our views of modern art, another country can offer a primer: Australia, where debates on the “contemporaneity” of Indigenous art predate ours by decades.

Two shows in New York offer profoundly different views of art from Indigenous Australia, and establish the stakes for exhibiting work made very far from our white cubes…

Steve Martin’s first encounter with Australian indigenous art was less than four years ago and he has become a zealous convert, declaring the masterworks of the Western Desert to be “art that rivals any contemporary art that’s being made”.

The star of Roxanne and Three Amigos has long been a collector, and after he discovered the work of Australia’s Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri at a New York show in 2015, he has acquired about 40 paintings by indigenous artists…

Ten acclaimed Indigenous Australian desert painters are about to be exhibited in a major gallery in New York City and all but one of the artworks come from the personal collection of Hollywood actor Steve Martin.

The world's most influential art dealer, Larry Gagosian, will show the paintings in his Madison Avenue gallery and it could be a game-changer for the fragile Indigenous art sector…

At our private exhibition in New York earlier this year one of the art world’s most influential people stood spellbound in front of this incredible painting by Bill Whiskey and described it as “powerful and majestic…”. Their reaction to Bill Whiskey’s work made clear to me why his pictures are so highly sought-after (and in my view under-valued) in the marketplace today…

When you get your own solo show at New York’s chic downtown gallery, Salon 94 Bowery, you know you’ve reached a new level of acclaim. And when your work is collected by some of the biggest music and movie stars on the planet - the world will know it too.

The artist is Yukultji Napangati and her exhibition – which will run until March – is stunning New York collectors who have never seen anything like it before…

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from the Department of Communications and the Arts announcing an important change in legislation that will be an absolute game-changer for the Australian Indigenous art industry.

The highly contentious Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 – which for many years restricted exports and thwarted the international trade for Indigenous art - was finally amended to more adequately reflect the current times…

When news broke at Sydney Contemporary that Bill Nuttall at Niagara Galleries had just sold Rover Thomas’ Kukatja, Wangkatjanka/ Woolanguwa, reputedly for $300,000, there was a collective industry cheer. Not only is the stalwart dealer highly regarded and well-liked, but the important work was crisp, rewarding and thoroughly deserving of the result.

It also perfectly sums up the mood of the market over the last 6 months…